As telecommunication technology evolves, an increasing number of applications are available to users. Many of these applications (e.g., video on demand) utilize substantial network resources, particularly bandwidth. The utilization of such applications creates an ever increasing demand on the limited resources of telecommunications providers. In order to manage such resource demands, telecommunications providers often employ network policies to limit resource utilization. Employing a policy scheme allows a network provider to offer its most demanding users, who may be willing to pay greater service charges, the high quality of service (QoS) required by such resource-hungry applications. Additionally, policy schemes may help to ensure reliable service for all network users, who absent such policy schemes, might be adversely affected by the disproportionate utilization of network resources by users of such resource-hungry applications.
Another problem with existing network architectures is that there is no mechanism for user controlled sharing of policy attributes. For example, one user may have reserved but unused network bandwidth. There is currently no mechanism for the user to initiate sharing of the unused bandwidth with another user.
Accordingly, a need exists for methods, systems, and computer readable media for user controlled policy sharing.